Dweezil Zappa

on of the legendary Frank Zappa, Dweezil (b. Ian Donald Calvin Euclid Zappa, September 5, 1969) was surprisingly not inspired by his father's work in the Avant-Jazz guitar playing style, but set himself up as a clone of another Eddie Van Halen, even to the point of kitting himself with the same clothes styles and guitar.

After being a guest performer on his dad's Them Or Us album in 1984, he would sign to 'Chrysalis' to release his debut solo shot, Havin' A Bad Day (1987). Since his debut was basically ignored he recruited a band proper in the form of himself on guitar with Scott Thunes (bass), drummers Steve Smith (of Journey), Bobby Blotzer (of Ratt), Terry Bozzio (of Jeff Beck Band), and Fiona (of Flannigan; vocals) to release a MTV savvy version of his father's My Guitar Wants To Kill Your Mamma (1988) and used it as the title track to his 1993 album of the same name. Three more albums have thus far followed with a basic Hard Rock Van Halen mimicry for Confessions (1991), Shampoohorn (Z) (1993) featuring his brother and Automatic (2001), an album that saw him take more of a back seat since the death of his father. 2006 - Go with What You Know (2006) and Via Zammata' (2015) would follow.

From 1998 to 2004, Zappa dated musician Lisa Loeb. Zappa and Loeb wrote and performed music together; Zappa also toured with Loeb's band. The couple co-hosted the cooking show Dweezil & Lisa on Food Network in 2004.

Zappa then married fashion stylist Lauren Knudsen on September 3, 2005 in Los Angeles - two daughters: Zola Frank Zappa (born 2006) and Ceylon Indira Zappa (born 2008) would follow.

Following the death of Zappa's mother, Gail, in October 2015, it was revealed that his siblings Ahmet and Diva were given control of the Zappa Family Trust and 60% of its value, while Dweezil and his sister Moon were given only a combined 40% share. The problem was compounded because Moon and Dweezil will not see any money from the trust until it is profitable (was expected to be in 2016), however, it was millions of dollars in debt" --and must seek permission from Ahmet, the trustee, to make money off of their father's music or merchandise bearing his name. The matter came to a head when Zappa received a cease-and-desist letter from the trust after he announced that he was being forced to perform his upcoming tour as "Dweezil Zappa Plays Frank Zappa" instead of using "Zappa Plays Zappa". In response to the trust's action, he renamed his series "50 Years of Frank: Dweezil Zappa Plays Whatever the F@%k He Wants -- the Cease and Desist Tour.

In "Weird Al" Yankovic's 2003 album Poodle Hat, Zappa performs the opening guitar solo and lends his vocal talents to the track, Genius in France. In 2006, Zappa organized the Zappa Plays Zappa tour by assembling a band of young musicians with a view to bring the music of Frank Zappa to a younger audience.

In 2016, Zappa went on tour to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the release of Frank Zappa's album Freak Out!